The Do Overs
by robert3A-SN
Summary: Leslie and Ben recreate and do-over some important events on the anniversary of a very special day.


The sight of Leslie Knope sitting down at her desk with a smile first thing in the morning was hardly noteworthy. In fact, most everyone in the department would be worried if a morning didn't start like that. But this was certainly one of her better happy mornings, since all the hubbub about policies and secret relationships and confessions and long overdue kisses was finally over. After a few weeks, everything was nice and normal again, with the really nice, not normal bonus of having a now official boyfriend in the building.

Speaking of official boyfriends, there he was right at her door right now. "What up, nerd?" Leslie bantered, not minding her lack of good grammar. But there were a lot of things she suddenly didn't mind with Ben Wyatt around these days.

"Leslie, may I see you and Ron in the conference room, please?" Suddenly, Leslie did slightly mind the lack of a smile on his face, or any acknowledgement of her latest nerd reference. But if he was gonna be in boring assistant city manager mode, better to get it out of the way now and then get to the good stuff.

So Leslie dragged Ron- figuratively and almost literally- to the conference room, where Ben was already standing. Once they sat down, Ben quickly shut the door, and actually addressed Ron first.

"Ron, I apologize in advance for bringing you into this. Please don't kill me….or at least leave me alive long enough to get you out of any future meetings for a week." Ron actually seemed to give this serious thought- although maybe that was just the eyebrows and mustache- before he grumbled "Done."

"Ben, why would Ron want to kill you? Did you say his home made chairs were wobbly, cause if you did, a deal isn't gonna save you." But once again, Ben didn't have one of his cute sarcastic quips for Leslie, nor did he even seem to pay attention to her.

"Now then, I know Chris put a pretty picture on things, but that's better than saying we need to cut this department down with a machete. That's why we're here today."

Leslie's first thought was to pinch herself to get out of this dream, but it didn't magically transport her back to bed. "Wait, I'm awake? That can't be, what else explains why you said that?"

"Anyway, who is expendable in the parks department?" Once Ben asked that, Leslie let out a series of confused noises, since English was escaping her. But Ron looked back and forth at them and only sighed. "You dragged me out of a perfectly good fantasy about my third lunch to do _this_, Benjamin? You must not have a working brain today."

"Then I suppose you'd better take my two week long offer, before I have my right mind again." Now not only were both Ben and Ron talking in gibberish, Ron actually seemed to understand it, which was supposed to be scientifically impossible. "Proceed, then."

"Proceed with what? Will someone tell me something in normal, please?" Leslie insisted.

"After you tell me who's expendable, Miss Knope."

At a loss at how to react now, Leslie just yelled out "No one" while Ron said "Everyone" at the exact same time. Leslie briefly wondered why this sounded familiar, before drawing her newfound ire back on Ben.

"Why are you acting like you're gonna slash our budgets again?" Suddenly, something resembling a logical idea struck Leslie's brain. "It's Chris, isn't it? I knew it took him too fast to be all peppy again after we wrecked his policy! Is that why he's making you say these awful things?"

"Chris isn't the only authority here, Miss Knope. We need to slash and burn here, unless we get a really good reason. Do you have one, Mr. Swanson?" Ron shook his head, while having one of those ultra creepy, budget cutting smiles on his face. Clearly, he wasn't going to be a help in dealing with this brainwashed, jerky version of Ben. So Leslie reverted to her default, long dormant method of dealing with Mean Ben.

"You really need a reason? All of the people, parks, dance parties, goats, festivals, waffles, concerts and….other connections weren't enough before? Well if they aren't, then that's some jerk's loss! Especially a jerky jerk with no memory of the greatest town and the greatest people in the world! What do you think about that, or can't you remember what I said already?"

Ben stayed perfectly still, although Leslie thought she saw him flinch just a little- but maybe Chris's technology just flickered out for a bit. "So….since this is the greatest town with the greatest people on Earth, I should reconsider trying to shut them down?"

"Ah, he still remembers to say something smart once in a while!" Leslie knew she could have had something better to say, yet she was getting too emotional to think of more clever putdowns. Plus, there was still a part of her that wished she didn't have to use her A-material on her….boyfriend, although it was fading a bit. But then things decided to get even nuttier.

"You know, I've cut out a bunch of budgets, fired a bunch of people, and didn't give it a second thought. But if Miss Knope here is that….fired up over keeping things as they are, she must have a good reason to do so. Perhaps there's more to this than I took time to think about before."

Ben almost seemed to flash one of the usual sweet smiles of the old Ben at that moment. "Yes….I think I'll go back to Chris, and recommend that we take another harder look at this thing. There's no sense in wrecking people's lives right away….especially really passionate, illuminating people, without being extra thorough."

Leslie didn't have the energy or the right state of mind to lift her hand, so Ben shook it for her. "Miss Knope, thank you so much for your time." He then shook a bored-again Ron's hand. "Mr. Swanson, it was nice meeting you as well. See you in about two weeks." Whatever version of Ben this was, he went out and left the room while Leslie sat back down, eyes wide and mouth almost gaping.

"And to think I was about to ask him to go camping," Ron stated. "But that's what I get for eating three less of my own turkey burgers every May 13'th, I suppose."

That was at least one of the least puzzling things someone said today. Today was May 13'th, and Ron only had one of his turkey burgers so far today….and he already wanted to ask Ben camping last….

Last year….

"BEN!"

Leslie was nearly out of breath by the time she finally found Ben in the halls- yet even she didn't look as exhausted as he did, all bent over and groaning to himself. As always, it amazed Leslie how this otherwise confident, dorky, deadpan man could get so bundled up in nerves sometimes- and that it was only reserved for stuff about her. Or when something he did turned into a particularly bad train wreck.

This time, it looked like both factors were making him panic, especially when he noticed that the first one was now next to him. Yet Leslie had her own ramblings to get out first.

"You said all those mean budget things last year, and last year was May 13'th, and today's May 13'th, and this is exactly a year since you came here! We….we met a year ago today, and you said all those things again just now.…only this time you agreed with me about Pawnee….so.…what?"

"Ugh, I knew I should have made it more obvious in there! I thought you'd get it when Ron had those creepy smiles and actually got what I was doing, but that was giving my plans too much credit!" Once again, Ben was making utterly no sense, but this more resembled the nonsense Ben that Leslie fell for, not the one she yelled at so much a year ago today.

"So if Chris didn't make you try and shut us down again, why did you start saying all that stuff again?"

"Because I wanted to give you a do-over. Because the very first time we met was a year ago, and the first time I ever talked to you was to tell you I wanted to shut you down. That's some great story to tell about the first time you met your girlfriend, so I wanted to do it right this time. I thought I could say what I should have said back then as a gift to you now, or something like that." Ben was now pacing the halls, and now Leslie could see him morphing back to normal. Even her confused brain was starting to piece this whole maddening, insane….but almost sweet plan of his together.

"This is our anniversary, and we have nothing to celebrate from that first day other than job threats, drunken birthday parties at night clubs and the birth of Mean Ben. Stupid Ben thought he could fix that without making you too mad, but he messed it up. Even bringing Ron on for authenticity's sake didn't work. But if things weren't going to work, this would be a good day for it, I guess."

While Ben was finishing off his guilt trip, Leslie actually looked like the calm one for once, now that it was all clear to her. She didn't even remember that it was their anniversary, after all that had happened lately. But he still remembered, and came up with such a crazy but….such a Ben way to honor her and Pawnee, on the one and only day he really hadn't in this last year.

It was still sad that after all he'd done since then, he still had to feel so bad over his past sometimes- even the ugly start in Pawnee. Sure, their first day together wasn't perfect, but the next 364 were close….and it's not like she didn't have a part in making day 1 so ugly. What with what happened the next time they talked and all…

The next time…..

"Hey Ben? Do you have anything planned for tonight….other than hyperventilating?"

Several hours, a few reassurances, and some more well thought out ideas later, Leslie was sitting by herself at the Snakehole Lounge. Fortunately, Tom's early evening smoozing was keeping him at the other end of the club, so he wouldn't interrupt tonight's little performances.

As planned, Ben arrived not too long later. And as planned, he had on the exact same outfit he wore a year ago tonight, when he failed to get out his first ever apology to Leslie. But things were going to go a little differently now, especially since they were both in on the routine, and neither one was drunk.

"Is this where I can find the parks department?" Ben asked on cue. "I'm new, so….oh, hello Miss Knope!" he stated, pretending to be surprised to see her there. He knew this isn't what he said to her last year, but neither was anything Leslie was gonna say this year, if he understood enough of her do-over.

"Hello, Ben….Wyatt, was it? Fancy seeing the guy that wanted to put my friends out of a job this morning."

"About that….I think I already said I was a bit rash, but I thought I should say sorry again. In this sleazy night club filled with drinks…none of which you seemed to be having."

"Yeah, I wasn't in the mood. If things went even worse, I might have been, but now I have more of a…proper perspective. Sit down and I'll explain." Ben took his cue and sat down next to her, which admittedly made it easier to hear her over the music.

"Maybe I shouldn't have jumped all over you, just because you were doing your job. For all I know, you don't know any better about towns like this, but it might not be your fault. Maybe some dumb childhood trauma sucked out your soul, but maybe it left a little bit of it still in there. So I say kill that soul killing trauma with kindness, instead of being an equally big jerk about it. Heck, if I need you to save my job or help me with concerts and festivals one day, I should get you on my side right away, huh?"

"Yeah….that could always help down the line." Ben once again had to concede Leslie's talent for speeches- even when compared to an amateur like himself. "I was still the sorry one first, but thank you Miss Knope."

"Leslie, please. Okay, Benjy?" And for the first time on this anniversary, they were laughing while on the same page. "All right, no more sorry's, let's order up and have a civilized conversation this time."

"I thought you'd be busy drinking with a friend. For a minute, it looked like you were getting chummy with a drunk nurse."

"Nah, I got that drunk nurse a cab and sent her home. Otherwise, she might literally hook up with some perky, peppy, kinda jerky new guy in town." Yep, the residue Chris-bashing still wouldn't get old for at least a few more days.

"Good call, Knope. But we'd better hurry up, I hear some really cynical girl is having her birthday party here in a bit."

"Nah, I don't think she'll make it. She might be too busy crashing with some rock star guy in a giant nerd's house, or something like that." Leslie wasn't bothering to bring back guest stars from their first meetings, like Ben was. But with the way Ben was laughing along and getting the digs, it didn't look like he minded. "So, tell me a little something about yourself, Ben….have you ever been to Minnesota?"

For the next hour, the two shared all of their old pre-May 2010 adventures and mishaps, as if they hadn't already shared them with each other 100 times. But since they were pretending to hear about them for the first time, it almost made it feel like all those real first times, only all in one. Combined with both of them knowing what day it was during this routine, and the still thrilling fact that they really could be this close in public now, it formed quite a romantic atmosphere- or as romantic as it can get between two giant nerds in a place called the Snakehole.

After Leslie pretended to rib Ben about his post-impeachment grounding for the first time, she accidentally got a look at a nearby clock during her laughing. With that, she brought herself to remember the next part of the reenactment.

"Well, it's getting late. I got a long night ahead, but you don't have to stay longer than you have to."

"No, it's no trouble at all," Ben remarked. "I can stay as long as you'll have me."

"Yeah, but there's only so much having you can do in a noisy place like this. Maybe we can take it to a more…intimate setting." For a brief moment, Ben forgot that Leslie wasn't one to knowingly make dirty-sounding offers like that. "Like at this bar I know, say tomorrow morning?"

"A bar….tomorrow morning?" That suddenly jolted Ben out of character. "Leslie, I wasn't planning on doing that over. That was the only thing I got right when I first came here, and that wasn't on the first day."

"Ha ha, you and your drunk talk, you're already getting hammered and saying weird stuff!" Ben now wondered if this was payback for his unexplainable lunacy this morning, and her way of fighting insanity with insanity. "Once you're sobered up, you'll know you should head home, meet me there tomorrow, and trust that it's gonna be something worth being sober for."

Ben seemed to eventually understand, although he was obviously disappointed in cutting the night short, just like Leslie was. But their first night together was pretty short too, so they had to be accurate in some senses, even if they left out April's birthday, Ann and Chris's drunk kissing, and Leslie being drunk in general. "Okay then, I suppose I'll drive home before my new roommates reload their marshmallow guns."

He got up and almost forgot that he couldn't kiss Leslie good night, just like he nearly forgot so many other times a month ago. They had to hide any true signs of parting affection again, yet this time, it was more for fun, despite how not fun it was earlier. But that was under Chris rules, and these were Ben-and-Leslie rules, which were a lot more tolerable. So for the second time on their anniversary, Ben shook Leslie's hand, and in this case, she shook back knowingly.

"It was an….experience meeting you, Leslie. Hope we have more like it soon."

"You'll just have to start getting plastered with me tomorrow morning to find out, won't you?" Both their laughs made it just a little harder for them to end the scene, but finally, Ben reluctantly headed off, while Leslie slightly slumped back into her seat. Yet they had enough memories to get them through the rest of the night, and Leslie's remaining plans for tomorrow kept her distracted as well.

Those plans led them the next morning to the bar where they had their first beers, on May 14, 2010. For the 2011 version of the meeting, Leslie got there first and made extra sure to reserve their old seats. She had to shoo away a few people from Ben's seat first, yet he eventually got there to fill it again.

"All right, so…am I saying good morning to 2010 Leslie, or 2011 Leslie? If we're still doing 2010, shouldn't we have done over our post-hangover argument in the office first, before we got here?"

"No, we're not doing that. And we're not gonna do-over you telling me the government's shutting down, or you telling me that I'm not essential, or even your plan to fire me before Ron saved the day. We're doing over your plans for more do-overs by doing no more overs. I just thought I should tell you here, in the one place you knew we didn't need one."

"Leslie, I don't know what you're talking about," Ben muttered, while going over how he'd have to cancel his budget task force reenactment now.

"You made up for being an ass last May 13'th, and so did I, and now we're even. So no more going over the bad stuff, especially with 364 much better anniversaries left to go. Especially this one. A year ago today, we had our first real one-on-one, as friends, right here, and you first told me about cute boy-major Benjy. And he's shown up quite a bit ever since."

Ben knew not to interrupt Leslie during one of her pep-talk speeches, so he just sat back. "You keep telling me that I'm the one that saved you and killed Mean Ben and so on and blah blah. But you gotta start giving yourself credit, too. Maybe I paved the route for good guy Ben to come back, but if you didn't do such a poor job of finishing him off, I wouldn't have known how to draw the map. I know how sorry you are that you put him on life support, but you're the one who first decided to revive him right here, for me, last May 14'th. Our real anniversary."

"And you've done the best do-over possible since then, for a whole year. But how about you take a break and enjoy your success, okay? Otherwise it could make our next several anniversaries a bit too weird."

The next several anniversaries...that certainly painted quite a picture. In the midst of all the madness it took for them to be together, Leslie could barely picture what would happen next for them. For someone who had planned out her entire road to the White House years ago, she was still a little hesitant to map out the future with Ben, or how long it would last. Yet after stating this kind of confidence out loud, she could see how they would make her prediction come true.

Maybe that was a better anniversary gift than the others- this place certainly seemed to bring out those kinds of milestones for them. This bar may not seem that special to everyone else, but finding that specialness inside everything, in spite of how hard it might be, was why they were here together now. It certainly helped them see it after May 13, 2010, despite everything, and look where that had left them on May 14, 2011.

"Guess that'd teach me for keeping Self-Pity Ben on life support all this time," Ben quipped.

"Yeah, that guy really sucks at gifts. He's got too much money to blow sometimes." The two laughed at this time-honored, year-round routine of trading one-liners, before Leslie carried out her new tradition of a kiss to top it off.

"I guess some people set the gift-giving bar a bit too high."

"Yeah, well what are you gonna do for guys like that, Ben? But let's leave him alone and get to the good stuff now. No more reenactments, no impersonations, no bribing Ron to watch us argue….just present tense Leslie and Ben. The bigger and better versions….well, maybe bigger in your case."

"I'll try to ignore how that hurt. But now that I think about it, there is one other big occasion the bigger and better versions can talk about. I know you tend to have big Master Plans for the fiscal year right about now, and I know that thanks to our compromise with Chris, I can't help rule on your budget plans because I'm 'biased.' But he forgot to include a clause against you going over your ideas with me here. I mean, it's not like some dumb state auditors are gonna come in and stop you twice in a row."

"Ben, you devious bastard," Leslie grinned, before launching right into her new Master Plan table of contents.

There was no doubt that they wouldn't need to do this part over next year.

**May 13, 2010 is indeed when "The Master Plan" first aired and introduced Ben and Chris last season, for those who don't remember or didn't get it. Somehow, it makes it all the more ironic- and promising- that Leslie and Ben's big breakthrough could come on the "Road Trip" episode that airs on May 12, 2011.**


End file.
